


negotiations

by words-writ-in-starlight (Gunmetal_Crown)



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast), The Adventure Zone: Commitment Arc (Podcast)
Genre: Commitment Arc, Gen, I Was Drunk When I Wrote This, Irene and Kardala have some things to figure out, or well i was slightly north of tipsy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 15:45:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13170072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gunmetal_Crown/pseuds/words-writ-in-starlight
Summary: Irene Baker and Kardala have...a contentious relationship.On the other hand, they also have people they want to protect.





	negotiations

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, y'all, I'm moving this over [from Tumblr](http://words-writ-in-starlight.tumblr.com/post/168913055800/do-you-ever-think-about-how-irene-baker-and-remy) because I recently discovered that there are like five whole Commitment fics so the more the merrier. It's not a _long_ fic but it's not a long arc either, okay, leave me alone.
> 
> I _was_ kind of buzzed when I wrote this so any mistakes are correctly laid at the feet of Bombay Sapphire, not me.

Irene Baker and Kardala have…a contentious relationship.  It’s true.  Like, Irene’s still  _in there_  but she spends all her time screaming at Kardala (sometimes to give her their body back, sometimes to MAKE BETTER CHOICES OH MY GOD) and when Irene’s in the driver’s seat Kardala rages and shakes her  _bones_ , until Irene’s resting heartrate can hit 190 with no ill effects.

So Irene leaves.  Says her goodbyes separately and just goes.  Remy almost cries about it.  Nadiya is polite and cursory about her goodbyes but they’ve spent enough time with her to recognize that  _particular_  brand of emotionless.  

Things are going a bit unspooled, in America.  The revelation of King Dick threw things into chaos, and Nadiya and Remy stick together (Remy won’t leave her, is the thing, and Nadiya doesn’t  _make_  him, is the other thing, so that’s sort of like sticking together) and try to help.  Nadiya talks a big game but she did join the Do Good Fellowship, and Remy just wants everyone to get along.  Of course they do everything they can.

Irene retreats to the other side of the country and loses herself in a crowd and tries not to think about the voice ( _Irene Baker you will release me you will return to them and you will help them and you will LET ME OUT)_ that roars in her dreams.

She’s taken up meditating.  She sits for an hour a day, kneeling on the floor, and she breathes and tries to find some peace.

_Please leave me alone_ , she tells the voice every day.

_YOU ARE WEAK,_ the voice that is Kardala bellows back.   _YOU ARE A PRISON_.

On the other side of the country, Nadiya has a section of her lab securely cordoned off with samples of her own skin and Remy’s skin in vials under a thousand conditions.  The rest of her lab is dedicated to turning her bioengineered skin into something bigger, something better–something to heal more than just dermal damage.  She has a Nobel Prize, the dream she’s been working toward for years, but.

But.

Remy is just Remy and he goes out at night in the armor that the DGF supplied him and tries to  _help_  (DGF is not the only group that’s started turning out superhumans, King Dick made a killing on that tech before he was brought in) and he comes back beat to shit more often than not.  Nadiya doesn’t  _like_  him but she also doesn’t want him to die on her couch.

“Aww,” Remy says hazily while she grafts a new patch of tissue onto his cheek to cover up a burn that almost took out his eye, smiling up at her crookedly while she curses the day he was born.  “I knew you cared.”

“I swear to God, I will throw you out of a window my own self.”

“‘s okay, I care ‘bout you too–this makes my mouth numb.”  It comes out more like  _dith makth m’moth numb_  but Nadiya has been at this for a while and has a dentist’s ear for Remy’s commentary, garbled or not.

“Lie fucking still.”

“D’you want to watch Liberty’s Kids with me, ‘Diya?”

“No,” Nadiya says as she sits down by Remy’s feet with a bowl of fried rice on her lap and he turns on the TV.

And then Remy doesn’t make it home.

_Vigilante hero identified as Christopher Rembrandt.  Critical, but alive._   

Nadiya finds out from the news, but she still makes it to the hospital before Remy’s brother, who works full time, hours from the city.  She brings a test kit of her latest project, something she started putting together when Remy came dangerously close to a cracked spleen from a nasty hit.  Hopefully it can help him.

She’s still hollering furiously at the doctors when Irene turns on her TV and sees the name scrolling across the bottom of the weather segment.

_Christopher Rembrandt_ , she thinks to herself.   _Why do I know that name?_

_The little man_ , Kardala says, and for a moment Irene doesn’t recognize the voice.  She didn’t know Kardala could speak softly.

“Who’s the little man?” Irene asks aloud, and then they show a sketch of the unknown vigilante (a ski mask, honestly, Nadiya despairs of him) alongside Remy’s contestant photo from Ninja Warrior, and Kardala doesn’t answer her.

(On the other side of the country, Nadiya grits her teeth and, for the first time in years, begs.  “ _Please_ ,” she says.  “ _Please_ , I know my formula will work,  _please_  let me try to save him before you do the surgery.”)

Irene sits on her floor and stares at the screen, then pulls up a computer when the news stops reporting on the distant disaster of Christopher Rembrandt, and feels a very different shiver than the one she knows as Kardala’s influence.

_We need to help the little man_.

Kardala has never called them  _we_  before.

_You’ll lock me away and I’ll wither away and die in there_ , Irene thinks before she can stop herself.  It’s a fear she’s never dared admit to Kardala before.  She has nightmares about Kardala leaving the area of effect around Remy and Nadiya, and Irene snapping back into the driver’s seat and not knowing how to move her own feet.

_You are a prison_.

_Yeah, well,_  Irene thinks.   _At least you’re strong enough to survive it._

There’s a moment of quiet, and then Kardala–sighs?  Irene thinks that’s what’s happening.

_I am a god and you are not._

Irene stares at Remy’s picture and sinks her teeth into the meat of her palm to stifle a dismayed whine.  He was such a sweet kid, is the thing.  If she was there, if  _Kardala_  was there with Irene bound up underneath, he would be strong and fast and agile, and maybe she wouldn’t be waiting to see if he survives this.

_But_ , Kardala says, and something…unbends.  Not really a softening, but something going flexible where before it was immoveable iron.   _We share the body_.

* * *

Nineteen hours later, Nadiya isn’t at the hospital because she’s getting some much needed sleep.

So when Remy wakes up, it’s Irene that he sees looking worn out at his bedside.

“’Reeeeeeeene,” he croons, reaching out to her.

“Hey, Remy,” she murmurs.

“Thought you were in fuckin’–fuckin’–uh, not here.  ‘Cause Kardala.”

“Yeah,” Irene says.  “We, uh.  We talked, I guess.  Then we talked some more on the plane ride.”

“‘s good,” Remy mumbles, his eyes closing again.  He’s in remarkably good shape given his injuries (including a gunshot), and Nadiya might be on deck for another big prize for this miracle, but it’s taken a lot out of him.  “K’dala’s not so bad.  Y’should be friends.”

“Well,” Irene says.  “I don’t know about that.”

* * *

Five hours after  _that_ , Remy wakes up again and he’s a little clearer.

“Nadiya,” he mutters, cracking one eye open.

“You’re awake,” she observes.  “Could you tell me how you feel?  I need to take notes, this is the first human trial of my internal synth-tissue and I’d appreciate some input.”

“Oh, I’m a  _guinea pig_.”

“You’ve been a guinea pig half a dozen times,” Nadiya says.  “Don’t be dramatic.”  She opens a tablet and pulls out a stylus, looking at him attentively.  “How are you feeling?  This is for posterity.”

“Was that a Princess Bride quote?  No, no, yeah, how do I feel, for science.  Like I got shot in the chest and pushed off a–what the hell  _is_  that?”

There’s a heavy thudding sound in the hallway, drawing closer, and Nadiya sighs, raising a hand to press her fingers to her temple as the door bursts open.

“LITTLE MAN,” Kardala booms, top volume even for her, and Remy’s heart rate performs an observable startled leap on the EKG.  “ARE YOU–I AM SORRY IRENE BAKER BUT YOU ALREADY GREETED HIM–ARE YOU WELL?”

“This is how it’s going to be now, apparently,” Nadiya says, switching to pinching the bridge of her nose.  

“Inside voice, Kardala,” Remy says.  “I’m on too many drugs for yelling.”

“I apologize!” Kardala says, as cheerful as ever but at a much more tolerable volume.  “Irene Baker and I have returned to ensure that you do not become severely injured in our absence!”

“Did Irene…agree to this?”

“Irene agreed!  And she told me that your favorite movie is a thing called ‘Flubber’!”  She leans down conspiratorially and says, in a–a shout-whisper, which is new to Remy, “It is so that you know that I am not doing subterfuge.”

“Nice,” Remy says, and offers the hand with the IV on it before thinking better of it.  “Fist bump.”

“Fist bump!” Kardala says joyfully, and bumps him harder than he might like before she sits down beside Nadiya in a chair that looks absolutely dwarfed by her size.  “I have brought spoils from the vending machine.”

Nadiya drops her hand from her nose.  “Just give me the fucking Nutter Butters and let me ask Remy some science questions.  And can we have Irene back so Remy’s brother doesn’t have a heart attack?”

**Author's Note:**

> Also, [SEREYASHADOWHARPER ON TUMBLR DID AN AMAZING DRAMATIC READING OF THIS FIC, AND YOU SHOULD ALL GO SCREAM WITH ME.](http://serayashadowharper.tumblr.com/post/169005422307/by-words-writ-in-starlight-in-this-ask-response)


End file.
